At first sight, Unna and Nuuk, directed by Saara Cantell, is a children’s film revolving around the fantasy of traveling back into time. In reality, this film actually tells a story that cuts across the ages, in more than one sense, to talk about the idea of development and the nature of civilizations. And Cantell does not think these concepts are beyond the comprehension of a couple of 11-year-olds. The lives of Unna and Nuuk, who belong to different ages, run parallel to each other before they actually meet, showing how human beings may seem to have come a long way, but not really so. Unna learns how to knit on the internet at a time when Nuuk is tattooed by his tribe to denote his coming of age. He is now a ‘man’, ready to undertake dangerous journeys while Unna engages herself in the craft of knitting. This subtle reference to the division of labour forms the backdrop the adventures that are to unfold soon.
Unna’s grandfather has suffered a heart attack and needs a fruit that is even in Nuuk’s age not found in abundance. She uses the instructions left by him to take that perilous journey into the past. She is neither scared nor very much hesitant. Traveling back into past is apparently done with relative ease. As an interesting parallel, the film festival also showcased a 1970s film Agantuk, by Satyajit Ray, about an eccentric traveler who believes that the tribes still surviving across the world know the right way to live. This widely criticized and appreciated film by India’s most acclaimed director seeks to explode the myth that tribes are primitive and wants to spread awareness about the scientific supremacy of the tribal people. While Agantuk engages the audience with a series of conversations, Unna & Nuuk drives home the point more subtly. Unna’s journey is also the director’s understanding of how the so-called civilizations have evolved and interacted. Back in the Stone Age, another tribe is competing with Nuuk’s people for the natural resources. The first reaction of those who come across people unlike them is always offensive, and Unna and Nuuk are imprisoned by the hostile group. But as opposed to the clash of civilizations theory, the film says that people eventually look for what is common between different communities. Nuuk’s tribe finds that Unna is also a Shaman, someone with the power to heal. With the warring tribe, she discovers where she might have inherited her physical traits. Her lineage is the combination of physical and mystical powers of the two tribes which have yet not reconciled. Kevin Costner’s Dance with Wolves delves into a similar theme. The Indians take their time before they can trust the outsider, but once they have ascertained that he is harmless, they embrace him wholeheartedly. Like Agantuk, Costner’s epic movie finds tribal people more open and broadminded and also less lacking in emotion. Unna and Nuuk do not speak each other’s language but in Nuuk she finds a friend she never had in the 21st century.
Cantell’s film also takes a hard-hitting political stand on the problems that come with technological advancement. The warring tribe has managed to build a dam but is unable to cure their leader’s child. They realize they need Nuuk’s help and also that they have to live in peace. Apart from underlining the necessity and the inevitability of reconciliation and co-existence, there is also argument in favor of sustainable development. The dam in her film is destroyed so that Nuuk’s tribe does not die out but the tribe is also introduced to a hammer, stronger than the tools it was using till then.
Cantell goes back in time to stress the need for peace and sustainable development to ensure the survival of all people: a goal achieved in the film without adults.
